A Study On Neil Postman’s Media Theory

Neil Postman was an outstanding Medium Theorist, Critic, and the public intellectual ofAmerica in the20thcentury. His most famous work was Amusing Ourselves To Death, which wasone of Postman’s Medium Criticism Trilogy that had been translated into several languages andtriggered off a wide reaction in many countries from America and Europe to Asia. With the help ofPostman’s colleagues in New York University, he established the subject of Media Ecology, whichbrought about the fact that the Media Ecology has been accepted by the academic ofcommunication in the North America.Although Neil Postman was deeply influenced by Marshall McLuhan, his media study wasderived from his English teaching. Postman agreed with McLuhan’s famous idea that medium ismessage and adopted the theories of technological ecology from Lewis Mumford, whichconcentrated on medium or media technology in the research. However, Postman argued that itwould not be any good holding neutral to media technology. Obviously, he was an MediumPessimist,as well as Harold Innis, Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul.As a humanist, Postman valued the spirit of humanism and the print culture, and stressed theimportance of human reason. Vigilant as he was against the electronic media, especially television,Postman sorrowed over the collapse of the Press and the rational spirit. In front of the madtechnology in modern society, he alway put up some evoking aphorisms that reminded people tobe cautious about the entertainment in television, and he advocated that we should observe mediain a way of humanization. As he used to be an English teacher and devoted himself to theeducational business,"pessimistic" Postman still held his hope when it comes to the future ofhumankind. Hoped that education could balance all kinds of facts that exist in media ecology, hehad launched a campaign of educational reform in1960’s which extremely advocated medialiteracy education.Based on the concerned studies, this thesis summarized the medium theories of Neil Postman,dividing his theories into three parts for three sections of his medium philosophy: Mediummetaphor, Medium technopoly, Medium education. Finally, this thesis evaluated and analyzed the two merits of Postman’s theories---mediapessimism and humanistic spirit---as well as the limits of his theories.